9/10/2022 football Edit

Wildcats assert dominance over Tigers, K-State routs Missouri 40-12

Jarod Hamilton • PowerMizzou

Staff Writer

MANHATTAN, KANSAS 一 Missouri needed all 60 minutes of game time, a 55-minute weather delay and an untimed down at the end of regulation to score double digits. That's how bad it was for the Tigers in their 40-12 loss to Kansas State on Saturday.

Usually, there's the good, the bad and the ugly. There was no good. Just bad and ugly.

Let's look at the bad. The best drive of the first half was the first possession where Brady Cook was able to use his legs to get a couple of first downs and then draw an offside penalty to get across midfield which eventually led to a Harrison Mevis 49-yard field goal to put the Tigers (1-1) up 3-0. Their first and only lead of the day.

Let's look at the ugly because there was a lot of it. After the field goal on the opening drive the Tigers would punt twice before a 55-minute weather delay with 7:44 in the second quarter halted the action. Going into the delay Missouri was down 14-3, so there was a possibility that the delay could give them a boost. Nope. After the delay, the Tigers resumed play with a third and 13 and ran a quarterback draw for seven yards. Then they gave up a punt return for a touchdown to Phillip Brooks on the next play.

After the Tigers got the ball again, they punted before dinking and dunking their way down the field with 45 seconds left in the half and ultimately got no points out of it. They did almost get Cook knocked out of the game though. He seemingly hurt his left shoulder on the last play of the half when he got hit into the ground.

The first drive of the second half wasn't bad. Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz seemed to open up the playbook (out of necessity) and the first play after halftime was a deep pass to Luther Burden III, who Cook overthrew. Cook did make up for it and threw his best pass of the season with a back shoulder fade to Dominic Lovett for 39-yards and the Tigers got three points out of it. The Tigers ran the ball once on that eight-play drive.

Which brought up the question as to why the Tigers don't have drives like that more often instead of the predictable and conservative run plays they continue to call?

Cook and Jack Abraham answered that question on the next four drives. Cook threw two interceptions inside the Tigers' own 30-yard line and was benched for Abraham who threw two interceptions on consecutive passes before he was benched for Cook.

"I felt like Brady had gotten hit quite a bit, and after the air had got knocked out of him and the interception 一 I just felt like seeing if Jack was seeing something different," Drinkwitz said. ... "I was just trying to light a spark or get something else going but Brady is our quarterback."

The defense has heart, it’s not last week’s defense but it isn’t 2021’s either

When Missouri defeated Louisiana Tech in week one, it appeared that was a litmus test for the Tigers to see where they were at physically and to see what they could work on coming into this game for themselves. The biggest thing that Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said they needed to work on was giving up explosive plays on defense.

If you don’t count the 24-yard and 28-yard rushing touchdowns they gave up to running backs Deuce Vaughn and DJ Giddens down by two touchdowns then they did that for the most part. But that doesn’t mean they were stopping the Wildcats' offense they were just getting beat more methodically.

It was clear against Kansas State (2-0) that the defense is not as good as last week’s defense but the third quarter alone showed that they are better than the defense from last season.

No, the defense didn’t play well in the first half, and it appeared they were closer to the Tigers' defense of old but in the third quarter when the Tigers' offense turned the ball over on four straight possessions inside their own 40-yard line the defense could have mailed it in. But they didn't. They exhausted everything they had to keep the Tigers in the game.

Sure, they gave up 40 points but when the offense can’t move the ball and the defense has to consistently be on the field because the offense is turning the ball over at will 一 they can get some grace. Considering the Wildcats' average field position was their own 40-yard-line the defense did well and stopped a beat down from becoming a massacre.

The Tigers' defense limited the Wildcats to 13 points after the Wildcats had got four straight turnovers.

“Our defense in the third quarter kept us in the game. It’s still a three-possession game until that final interception and they kept going out there and battling,” Drinkwitz said. “So absolutely, I thought our defense did a nice job.”

The Tigers beat themselves

The quickest way to lose a game is for one to sabotage themselves.

On Tuesday, there were pictures of Vaughn hanging on doors around Faurot Field and under the picture was a caption saying “don’t let No. 22 beat you.” The thing was he didn’t have to, and neither did defensive end Felix Anudike-Uzomah. Vaughn rushed for a comfortable 145 yards and two touchdowns on 24 carries.

It didn’t appear as if Vaughn took over the game and single-handedly beat the Tigers. It seemed like he just got his stats as the game went. Anudike-Uzomah finished the game with three tackles (two solo), a 0.5 tackle for loss and a 0.5 sack.

The Tigers didn’t limit them but the Wildcats also didn’t have to call on the pair to wreck the game. Missouri was doing that all by itself.

Whether it was the coaching staff and some of the playcalling or their lack of preparation (like calling a timeout after a television timeout and running a jet sweep to Mookie Cooper for a loss of four). The quarterbacks being careless with the ball. The running backs not really doing much of anything to note (32 yards on 21 carries for Nathaniel Peat, Cody Schrader and Elijah Young). The wide receivers dropping passes or not getting much separation, the defensive line not getting any pressure or probably the offensive getting bullied for all 60 minutes 一 it just seemed like the Tigers didn't give themselves a strong chance to win.

Kansas State won the trenches easily

Missouri's drives against Kansas State on September 10, 2022

It doesn’t matter which side of the ball you look at Kansas State was better at every position including coaching. But the most lopsided battle was in the trenches.

It’s easy to note how bad the offensive line played but the defensive line didn’t play that great either.

The defense recorded four quarterback hurries and no sacks, and the defense as a whole had one tackle for loss.

Now, the tackle for loss partially falls on the linebackers because they’ve got to help too but the defensive linemen weren’t forcing Kansas State quarterback Adrian Martinez to do anything he didn’t want to do. Martinez finished the game 9 of 20 for 101 yards and no passing touchdowns. But he was the Wildcats' second-leading rusher with 13 carries for 52 yards and a touchdown.

The pressure by the defense was non-existent virtually all day, and Martinez couldn’t have looked more comfortable.

The Missouri offensive line appeared to be the second-worst position group behind the tight ends last week. Tight end Tyler Stephens fumbled and Missouri ran for over 330 yards. This week the tight ends were just out there but they weren’t worst than the offensive line.

The Wildcats recorded 10 tackles for loss and a sack. If it wasn’t for the number of interceptions they had the Wildcats probably have more tackles for loss and sacks. The only time there was a true belief that the Tigers could score a touchdown against the Wildcats’ defense lasted through the first offensive drive for the Tigers. Even at the end of the game, it took a timeout down 34 and an untimed down for Schrader to barely muscle his way into the endzone.

The offensive line provided no push up front, so the running backs couldn’t run north and south and without any run game, there was no way to set up the passing game. Last week, Missouri showed that they were better at run blocking than pass blocking. It showed again versus Kansas State. That’s why the Tigers punted six times and part of the reason they turned the ball over four times 一 because the quarterback and position players didn’t have time to do anything.